


Like an Old Friend

by Dathen



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Ghostslayer, Memory Loss, Speculation, the rest of the party is there but not featured, vaguely dark/deathy musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 22:12:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13727025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dathen/pseuds/Dathen
Summary: He never intended to turn near-death experiences into a habit. Then why did they feel like one?Set during the end of Episode 5; an exploration of Mollymauk's blood hunter subclass, the Order of the Ghostslayer.





	Like an Old Friend

It was becoming a _habit_.

Mollymauk knew he had a tendency to be would could be called reckless. Never as much as, say, the Knot Sisters and their death-defying acrobatics, or Yasha when everything left her eyes but rage. Just enough to rush ahead when trouble was thick. As he’d told his new companions, the carnival didn’t have an abundance of the sword-wielding, swashbuckling sort in their numbers.

Even so, it was never enough that brushes with death would become routine. He’d felt that horrible, sucking feeling of blackness creeping over him more often in the past week than he’d read fortunes, or sold tickets, or tried to steer superstitious villagers away from their pitchforks with a joke or two. Mollymauk knew his life would change when he set off with this noisy little crew--even before then, the moment the crownsguard clapped iron round his wrists. But not like this. A narrow scrape or two in the past, but nothing like this.

At least as much as he could remember. Which, he knew, meant very little when the path of memories ends abruptly two years ago.

And yet...there was a chilling familiarity to the hungry darkness. Like it knew him well. Had been _waiting_ for him. In that horrible moment when pain begins to ebb, vision clouding and the last sense to fade being the tickle of hot blood drip, drip, dripping across his skin, something felt...right. Something woke up. _He_ woke up.

Molly dragged in a breath, not realizing he’d stopped breathing until he’d gone lightheaded. The buzz of the common room was dying down, villagers filing out to return to half-charred homes, and the stench of smoke that filled every breath buzzed between his teeth. He took another sip, fighting the urge to cough against smoke and liquor alike. The drink burned down his throat and the arms of his chair were rough against his forearms and the chipped glass cool against his fingertips. Everything around him felt garishly solid, reality sinking hooks into him to keep him floating away. And yet somehow he knew, even now, that if he had tried to sit up after falling, he would have been able to turn around and look down at his own body sprawled in the ash, arrow sprouting from his ribs.

That he had done it before.

The feeling was a thread in his fingertips. If he grasped it, he could follow it back, back into the crumbled reaches of shadowy memory, like retracing steps he’d never taken through a maze he’d never seen. He knew better than to try. Even now, he could feel the proverbial cliff’s edge giving way beneath his toes. Molly drew another grounding breath, tasting ash and iron on his tongue. The freshly-healed scar on his chest throbbed.

Had it been death? If he’d taken that step and risen to move from his body sprawled senseless in the dirt, would the Beyond snatch him up? _No,_ the thought welled up, deep in his gut, disturbing in its certainty. _This is a dance you know. This is a dance you miss. We could canter on the knife’s edge and return unscathed._ The soft shadows of the emptied common room swam as the memory crept over him again. _Walk the tightrope, tethered by a breath--his feet knew the steps, his spirit tugged at mortal bonds to join the music--_

The table rattled when Molly shoved himself to his feet with sudden force. He stumbled as he stalked towards the stairs, head spinning from the drink and sudden movement. He needed-- Needed-- “Yasha to slap me upside the head and tell me to stop brooding,” he muttered aloud to the empty room. But Yasha was gone, and the others (hopefully) asleep. A little stab of worry over Nott spiked through him. She'd taken the worst of it today, and here he was moping. Molly clutched at the feeling, letting everything else drain away. Worrying over others was much more comfortable than worrying about himself. It always had been. He hurried his steps up the creaking stairs.

A soothing chorus of breathing met him when he creaked open the door of their rented room. It was stuffy inside, five people crammed in the small space, but the smell of smoke was fainter here. The dim red glow of his eyes allowed him to pick his way over Beauregard’s sprawling form to the center of the room. Fjord and Caleb had fallen asleep in their clothes, and Jester was flopped over the foot of one bed, face squished against an open sketchbook. One hand dangled over the edge of the bed, a pencil hanging from loose fingers. It took only a moment to find Nott, a snoring lump under a tattered corner of Caleb’s coat-- _of course_ , he reminded himself, _she already has someone to fret over her_. Like Toya now had Orna. The thought left him oddly unbalanced.

Someone on the bed stirred as he began to spread his coat out on the flood. “Molly? S’everything alright?” Jester’s words were muffled, like she hadn’t bothered to lift her head to speak.

His smile slipped easily into place. “Just fine, dear, go back to sleep.”

“I’ll heal you more tomorrow. Promise,” she went on, words trailing off into a sigh, then into quiet, rhythmic breaths. Molly felt his smile soften before he gingerly stretched out on his coat. Every cut and bruise Jester’s magic couldn’t mend screamed at him for volunteering for the floor, but in some strange way, he was glad for it. Only mortal shells dealt with aches and bruises and unforgiving floorboards. He let his breathing weave with theirs, anchoring him like a spell, and let himself drift away.

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since I read the class notes for the Order of the Ghostslayer subclass, I was dying for Taliesin to take it and am dying even more now that he has. Though he won't get them until later levels, I couldn't resist exploring some of the class's abilities--particularly those that allow the ghostslayer to step between the spectral world and the mortal world with ease, even to the point of being able to fight on as a spirit after being struck down in battle.
> 
> I'm working off a few common headcanons in this work: that Mollymauk can't remember anything before joining the carnival two years before (other than bits and flashes of demon lore), and that he's -remembering- his class abilities more than learning them as he goes. I'm sure we'll be proven wrong to some degree or another in the future, but that's not going to stop me from wallowing in all this intriguing character goodness in the meantime!


End file.
